There has been appreciable interest in production of molded food patties having two ingredients; the patty is usually formed as a relatively large ring of a first ingredient encompassing an appreciably smaller center portion of a second ingredient. Typical products of this kind utilize chicken for the main outer ingredient, with cheese or stuffing for the second ingredient. A variety of other similar products are possible, including the combination of fish with crab or other stuffing as the other ingredient, and beef or other meat with a second ingredient at the center of the molded food patty.
There are a number of high efficiency, high volume food patty molding machines that have been utilized for production of hamburger patties, other ground meat patties, chicken patties, fish patties, imitation steaks, and other molded food products. Three such machines that are commercially available are described in Richards et al. U.S. Pat. No. Re. 30,096, Sandberg et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,054,967, and LaMartino et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,182,003; these machines are available as the F-26, F-19, and F-12 food patty molding machines, respectively, made and sold by Formax Inc. of Mokena, IL, U.S.A. A more recently introduced, smaller food patty molding machine, one that is quite flexible in its operation, is described in Sandberg U.S. Pat. No. 4,768,260; the machine of that patent is available from Formax Inc. as its F-6 machine.
All of these high volume food patty molding machines are relatively flexible and each can produce a wide variety of food patties, depending upon the mold plate configuration and other mold station components in the machine. However, these machines have not been utilized for the manufacture of dual-ingredient molded food patties. This applies also to other food patty molding machines that, like the machines identified above, use a reciprocating mold plate with mold cavities which, in the fill position for the mold plate, are sealed off by mold covers on opposite sides of the mold plate. Thus, these high efficiency food patty molding machines have not heretofore been available for production of dual-ingredient food patties, particularly where one ingredient is to be disposed within the other within a cavity in the reciprocating mold plate.